August i, iSSS. ] 



Garden and Forest. 



265 



GARDEN AND FOREST. 



I'UHI.ISHEII WEEKLY HV" 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Office : Trirune Building, New York. 



Conducted by . Professor C. S. Sargent. 



ENTERED AS SECOND-CLASS MATTER AT THE POST OFFICE AT NEW YORK, N. Y. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST i, 1888. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGF 



Editorial Articles : — Hardy Trees for a Trying Climaic. — The Onteora Club 



and its Chance for Usefulness. — Note 265 



The Squares of Paris (with illustration) Henry S. Codman. 267 



Foreign CokRESPONDENCE : — London Letter W. Goldt'iiig;, 267 



New ok Little Known Plants : — Magnolia Thompsoniana {with illustration), 



C. S. S. 268 



Cultural Department : — Herbs for Seasonini^ /f. Falconer. 268 



Strawberry Notes E. IV'illitinis. 270 



Some Floral Novelties IV. F. 270 



Single Pjeonies y. Douglas. 270 



Coelogyne Dayana. — The Rock-Garden. — A Good Rose, — Weeds.— Ar- 



meria vulgaris . . 271 



Plant Notes : — The Double-Flowered Chinese Crab Apple (with illustration), 



C. S. S. 272 

 Notes from the Arnold Arboretum J. 272 



The Forest : — The Forests of Europe as Seen by an American Lumberman, 



//. C. rutna)u. 274 



Correspondence 274 



Recent Publications 275 



Periodical Literature 275 



Recent Plant Portraits 275 



Notes 276 



Illustrations ; — Plan of a Paris Square 267 



Magnolia Thompsoniana, Fig. 43 269 



The Double-Flowered Chinese Crab Apple, Fig. 44 272 



Hardy Trees for a Trying Climate. 



ABRUPT transitions between e.xtremes of heat and 

 cold, and of dryness and humidity, render the cli- 

 mate of the prairies a trying one for many forms of plant 

 life. This is especially true of fruit trees and other plants 

 which have originated under the milder skies of western 

 Europe or in the more equable climate of the Atlantic sea- 

 board. During a few years past the orchards of the North- 

 west, planted largely with trees derived from foreign stock 

 but which will flourish in the East, have suffered so severely 

 as to convince fruit-growers that hardier races of trees must 

 be planted, or their industry must be abandoned. How 

 to secure these hardy trees is the problem upon which 

 many active minds are now at work. The importation of 

 varieties from climates similar to that of the prairies is be- 

 ing tried on a large scale. Apples, Pears, Cherries and 

 other fruits from the central plain of Europe have been 

 widely distributed, through the efforts of Professor Budd 

 and others. But many close observers and experimenters 

 advocate, as a preferable plan, the breeding up and im- 

 provement by selection of the wild fruits already found in 

 the West, just as our most vigorous Raspberries and Grapes 

 have been produced from native species. Perhaps both 

 methods will prove helpful ; but long and patient study 

 will be needed before a race of trees is produced with 

 constitutions sturdy enough to resist the severities of the 

 climate and at the same time yielding fruits so delicate in 

 quality as to satisfy an educated taste. The work of 

 improving fruits and producing those adapted to any given 

 locality will devolve largely upon nurserymen, and it 

 must, in the main, be a labor of love, for the profits arising 

 from study and e.xperiment of this sort are remote 

 enough. In the course of his admirable address at the 

 late convention of American Nurserymen, at Detroit, Mr. 

 C. L. Watrous, the President, dwelt upon this theme at 

 length, and our readers will thank us for quoting this in- 

 structive e.xtract : 



The cycle of unfavorable seasons, seasons of extreme heat 

 in summer and extreme cold in winter, which have proven 

 so destructive to nurseries, orchards, and, in fact, to all species 



of fruit-bearing trees and plants in many parts of the West, 

 seems to have run its course, and the lessons taught by it 

 may more than compensate for the losses. It has been ob- 

 served everywhere tliat varieties of trees and plants indigenous 

 to that region, or descended from such indigenous forms, 

 have suffered least, if at all. In regions where all fruits de- 

 scended from forefgn ancestors have been crippled, the na- 

 tive forms and tlieir derived varieties have sulTered little. 



Among fruits, the Apple, most important of all and wholly 

 of foreign ancestry, has suffered most grievously, the CherrV 

 and Plum, also of foreign ancestry, sulTering the next heaviest 

 losses. Our Grapes, east of the Rocky Mountains and outside 

 of green-houses, being largely of native ancestry, are still 

 ready for business or pleasure. The Raspberriesj Blackber- 

 ries, Strawlserries and Gooseberries, all of native stock, are 

 ready for use. Happily for the country, all these last named 

 fruits have been so thoroughly emancipated from their taint 

 of foreign ancestry as to be thoroughly reliable throughout 

 all the regions indigenous to their wild relatives. It only 

 needs that painstaking and conscientious men shall originate 

 new and better adapted forms in every locality whose condi- 

 tions render such labor necessary, and shall seek out and 

 propagate such promising chance seedlings as may from 

 time to time appear, in order that each botanical region may 

 have an abundance of varieties well adapted to its needs. 



Throughout all of the great empire known as the north- 

 west, native forms of the Plum have now almost or quite sup- 

 planted the foreign stock. The Cherry and the Apple still 

 remain to be carried througli the same course of evolution, 

 by seedling variation, that has already been passed through by 

 the Grape, the Raspljerry, the Blackberry, the Strawberry and 

 the Gooseberry. A glance into the list of the venerable Amer- 

 ican Pomological Society will show how very few years have 

 lieen spent in changing the lists of approved sorts from foreign 

 to native names and the different native species into what now 

 supply so laro-eashare of the most pleasure-giving and health- 

 sustaining part of our national diet. The same broad road to 

 improvement is open in case of the Cherry, and especially of 

 the Apple. At the risk of seeming extreme in this regard, I 

 am willing to go on record before you all, as saying that I be- 

 lieve sufficient progress has been made to justify a confident 

 expectation that within the lives of young men who hear my 

 voice to-day, the common and universally propag'ated varieties 

 of the Apple throughout the great north-west will be the de- 

 scendants of the native Crab Apples, indigenous to the glades 

 and thickets of the prairies, which have through ages unmeas- 

 ured and immeasurable by any standard of ours, by variation 

 and natural selection, adapted their race to every vicissitude 

 of their climate and soil, as none of foreign ancestry ever can, 

 except by the same measureless course of adaptation 

 through seedling variation. 



This is not all as visionary as it might appear. Already 

 have been exhibited two different varieties of Apples bearing 

 unmistakable proofs of legitimate descent froin native 

 thickets, which have excited favorable attention. In many 

 different places careful and zealous experimenters are devel- 

 oping these, by cross fertilization and otherwise, with high 

 hopes for the future. There is no reason why the Cherry 

 should not tread the same king's highway towards perfect 

 adaptation. I hold diat a perfectly adapted Grape or Apple 

 should bear its fruit, and, with proper care, be as long-lived 

 as its wild brethren in the thicket. Why should not this be 

 so, as well as that the civilized brain-worker should, by proper 

 living and care, not only live as long in useful activity, but 

 far outlive, the days allotted to the savage roaming the 

 forests and prairies of the same region ? 



The considerations here urged regarding tlie superiority of 

 native forms of fruit-bearing trees and plants, apply with no 

 less force to trees and plants for ornament, shade, shelter and 

 timber. The best authorities now agree that American trees 

 are the best for America. The foreign trees with which so 

 many of the older parks and pleasure grounds of the East 

 were planted, from lack of suitable and cheap trees of our own 

 native varieties, are steadily failing, wlien their days of greatest 

 use and beauty should be just upon them. One of the most 

 eminent authorities in America, in considering these failures, 

 has lately said in bitterness of heart, that if these losses and 

 failures, as lamentable and almost irremedialile as they are, 

 will only teach men the folly of proclaiming the worthiness 

 and adaptability of anv foreign tree or plant, before it has had 

 a trial of a time extending at least through a period equal to 

 the natural life of a single individual of the species, these losses 

 and theirlessons will not have been too dearly bought. 



Evei-y nurseryman in the nation should feel his responsi- 

 bility to himself and to his generation, not only to do what he 



